


strychnine

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: White Collar
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt Neal Caffrey, Hurt/Comfort, Poison, Whump, hope that comes thru anyway!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23736442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: written for bthb prompt: poison/venom. neal is working undercover and gets poisoned.
Relationships: Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 17
Kudos: 162





	strychnine

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!!! i hope you enjoy this fic, i love neal and i love to beat him up and i hope this is ok!!!

As far as white collar crimes went, embezzlement was by no means the most interesting one. Especially not this particular embezzlement case, Neal thought. One of the board members of a nonprofit charity dedicated to the arts in schools had been suspected of the crime-several employees had accused him of funnelling thousands of dollars in donations into his own personal accounts. So far, however, no one had been able to prove it. 

This was, of course, where the FBI, and Neal by extension, came in. He’d been sent to work at the nonprofit and instructed to use his knowledge and skills in art as a way to get close to the suspect and hopefully learn his secrets.

At first glance, this had seemed fairly exciting-getting to show off his artistic prowess was always a good time-but the reality of the situation was, he was stuck behind a desk taking calls for most of the day, except on the rare occasions that he was invited to speak with a member of the board. 

Still, little by little, he’d made progress with the suspect, and now, in his third week on the job, he was having lunch with their suspect, Jason Reynolds, nearly every day, discussing things that began with favorite artists and slowly moved toward Mike’s-Neal’s alias’-openness to a little crime. He was so close to drawing Reynolds out into the open-he’d confessed to a few small things already, nothing big enough to land him in serious trouble, but Neal was sure he’d reveal his guilt in the embezzlement case before the end of the week.

He wasn’t wrong with this assumption-though if he knew exactly  _ how  _ Reynolds’ guilt would come to light, he might’ve gone about things a little differently.

The day had started off like every other one for the past few weeks-he arrived at work at eight in the morning, was debriefed by Peter, swapped his tracking anklet for a watch, put in his earpiece, grabbed some breakfast, and made his way to ‘work.’

He’d just gotten settled at his desk when the secretary for the board of directors, Catherine, walked up to him, a cup of coffee in each hand. She set one cup on his desk and told him that Reynolds had sent it for him-apparently, he had something important to talk to Neal about, and would be calling on him within the hour. 

There was a bit of excited chatter in his ear as this information was received by Peter and his team. This had to be it, Reynolds was going to be taken down  _ today! _

Neal drummed his fingers on his desk as he worked, answering phone calls with perhaps a little less professionalism than he usually afforded the task-today  _ was  _ his last day, after all. He absentmindedly sipped at his coffee, which, somehow, had been made exactly the way he liked it, though it was a little bitter.

After perhaps ten minutes, Neal's coffee and work were entirely forgotten-he knew he should have been working, keeping his cover until the last second, but he was so excited that he found it impossible to keep still. He bounced his leg, continued tapping on the desk, fiddled with his pens, his watch…

Another few minutes went by, and Neal began to wonder if something was wrong with him. The muscles in his arms and legs were getting sore, but he hadn’t done anything to strain them recently. He decided to get up and stretch them out, maybe take a quick walk around the room, but the second he stood up, his heart began to pound and his breathing quickened and he realized that he was  _ afraid _ -but of what? His mind refused to give him that information, insisting only that something, somewhere, was scary. Which made no sense, some rational pet of his mind told him, but there he was, at his desk surrounded by nothing but other workers, terrified.  _ Something had to be wrong… _

He was just working out how to convey this thought to Peter and his team when he was startled out of his thinking by a tap on his shoulder from the secretary, and once again jumped out of his chair. 

“Sorry, Mike,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

He took a second to get himself under control-it was just a tap to the shoulder, no reason to be so startled. “It’s alright, Catherine. The boss wants to see me now, I take it?”

She nodded. “He says it’s something that’s  _ really _ going to pique your interest.”

Neal nodded back, and gave her what he hoped passed as a friendly smile-not only were his arms and legs sore, but now, his jaw had decided to tighten up, and he could barely tell if it moved at all. Yeah, something was really wrong. But he was  _ so close  _ to getting the information they needed...whatever this was could wait a few minutes. 

He made it to Reynolds’ office somehow, and had scarcely closed the door behind him when his legs went stiff and he collapsed to the floor. There was a quick, “What was that?” in his ear, which he ignored in favor of attempting to stand up. He didn’t get very far before he was pushed back to the ground by a sharp arching in his back that  _ wouldn’t stop,  _ and he groaned weakly and muttered, “wha’s happening?”

There was a rush of questions through this earpiece, which his brain processed only as garbled words which were entirely too loud. He tried to ignore the voices and focus on Reynolds instead. 

He looked up, as much as his body would allow, and saw Reynolds standing over him, without any sort of concern on his face and- _ oh god, Reynolds had poisoned him. _

As if to confirm this thought, Reynolds smiled, a sharp and dangerous smile, and said, “you thought you were so clever, didn’t you, Mike? Thought you could waltz in here and get all buddy-buddy with me, like you  _ deserved  _ to get in on my payoff?”

_ No, no, no, this was bad, this was very bad. He had to do something... _ but his mind was blank. The voices in his ear were fairly shouting now, and he felt his body begin to spasm painfully and realized he could barely breathe and he needed...he needed…

“Peter…”

If anyone could help him, Peter could. Peter could save him. 

He didn’t hear Peter. Or maybe he did. The voices coming through his earpiece had long since melted into one thing. But Peter had to come, right? Peter could help him, Peter could  _ always  _ help him, and he was  _ so scared _ and everything hurt  _ so much _ and he couldn’t control  _ anything  _ and  _ Peter, please... _

He wasn’t aware of much else for quite some time. He heard Reynolds laugh, and then there was a crash, and a bunch of people surrounding him, and someone had a soft hand on his face and was telling him he was going to be okay, and then some people picked him up, and then everything  _ really  _ started to blur together, and the next thing he knew, he was slowly opening his eyes to the sound of steady beeping and something mildly scratchy covering him. 

The hospital. 

He looked around, not expecting much. A couple machines, maybe. 

There  _ were  _ a few machines in the room, but there was also a chair, with a plasticky and uncomfortable looking cushion, and seated in it, a book open across his lap, eyes closed and snoring softly, was Peter. 

Peter  _ had  _ come for him. Peter had saved him. He smiled at that thought, and quietly whispered Peter's name to wake him up.

Peter jerked out of his doze and looked around confusedly for a second until his eyes landed on Neal. 

“How you feeling?”

Neal experimentally moved an arm. “Better.” Vaguely sore, but his mind was clear and his body felt more or less like it should have. “He poisoned me. Reynolds.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, worry still etched into his face. “Strychnine.”

Neal was far less concerned with the means of his poisoning than the outcome of the case. “Did we get him?”

“We sure did,” Peter said, smiling a bit at his CI’s focus on the case rather than on what had happened to him. “Embezzlement  _ and _ attempted manslaughter.”

“Oh.” He  _ had  _ almost died, hadn’t he? This wasn’t the first time he’d almost died, of course. And nor was it the first time Peter had been the one to stop him dying. 

“Thank you. For saving me, I mean.”

Peter, whose thoughts had evidently been in the same direction, said, “wouldn’t be the first time.” But he smiled when he said it, and patted Neal on the arm. “I’d say don’t make a habit of it, but I think we’re past that point.”

Neal nodded absentmindedly. He was  _ tired.  _ But there was still work to be done, right? “How was the arrest? What...what happened?”

“You can go back to sleep, Neal. I’ll fill you in on the details of the arrest later.” 

He nodded again, gratefully. “Thanks, Peter.”

Peter clapped him on the shoulder in a poor but kind and almost fatherly attempt at affection. “Of course.”

Neal slept.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! i did A Lot of research on strychnine poisoning so hopefully this felt accurate! please feel free to let me know what you think!!!


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